ARLINGTON, TEXAS—For four magical minutes Thursday afternoon at Cowboys Stadium, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles gave the crowd exactly what it wanted.

Coach Andy Enfield’s players spent most of their allotted 50-minute practice session running loosely structured shooting drills. The idea was to acclimate themselves to the shooting background, and get used to the idea that the giant video screen hovering above the court wouldn’t come crashing down. So they shot 3-pointers, and they worked on baby hooks in the lane and they practiced free throws. There were no above-the-rim displays.

But then, finally, with about 12 minutes left in the shootaround, Enfield gathered up his players for a minute-long chat. When they dispersed into two lines, on either side of the court, the crowd stirred a bit. Then, the alley-oops started.

And the spinning, twisting, twirling dunks started. Suddenly, there were no Michigan fans or Kansas fans or Florida fans or Florida Gulf Coast fans who had flocked to Cowboys Stadium with the promise of free practice-day tickets. There were only fans of the acrobatic dunks that were being attempted by the residents of the newly christened Dunk City, USA—the campus home of FGCU in Fort Myers, Fla.

For those four minutes, the Eagles tried to one-up each other every time they attacked the rim. They reacted to the makes and misses with the same range of emotions as the fans in the stands. Then, suddenly, the aerial acrobatics were done. The smiles remained, though, through the final few minutes of practice. “Our team chemistry is at an all-time high,” Enfield says. “What you’re seeing is genuine. They enjoy being here, they enjoy playing the game of basketball.”

Obviously, the Eagles rebounded from those ominous back-to-back defeats.

“We beat Mercer at home and Kennesaw at home, so that gave us momentum to come into the conference tournament ready to play,” sophomore Bernard Thompson said. “We knew this was our goal, to be here in the NCAA Tournament, so we knew in the conference tournament we had to buckle down, stay focused and just play team ball.”

And that’s the beauty of the NCAA Tournament—there are an unlimited number of paths to March success. Look at the four teams in the North Texas region: Michigan went 5-5 in the brutally tough Big Ten to close the regular season; Florida lost its final three true road games and then to Ole Miss in the SEC title game; Kansas was crushed by Baylor (a 23-point loss) in its regular-season finale before winning the Big 12 Tournament.

Florida Gulf Coast, though, picked up the necessary confidence with wins against Mercer and Kennesaw State in its final two regular-season games, then won the Atlantic Sun Tournament and then dispatched second-seeded Georgetown and seventh-seeded San Diego State (by 10 points each) once arriving in the NCAA Tournament.

“We didn’t win the (regular season title). We lost out to Mercer, but we were able to beat them two times in about a week-and-a-half, and from there we just really started rolling,” said senior Eddie Murray, who had nine points and five rebounds against Georgetown. “I don’t know that we’ve had a game in single digits. We’ve really been playing well. Our guys have had confidence and we’re going to try and keep it going tomorrow night.”

That confidence has translated into an aggressive style of play, and that style of play has led to 10 dunks in their two NCAA Tournament games. The Eagles, who are 15-2 this season when throwing down at least five dunks in a game, have 144 dunks on the season—59 in the first half of games and 85 in the second half. Point guard Brett Comer has assisted on 64 of those dunks. But dunks alone haven’t sent Georgetown and San Diego State home, obviously.

“We were just playing team ball. We had great ball movement, just getting the ball on both ends of the floor,” says Thompson, who scored exactly 23 points in each of the two NCAA victories. “We were knocking down shots, making winning plays—that’s what Coach harped on a lot, just make the easy play, don’t always try to go for the home-run play. We took what they gave us. They gave us open lanes and that led to Brett dishing out the ball. I know he’s averaging a double-double right now. He kicked it out to whoever was open, and we just knocked down the shots or got the easy layups.”

If the underdog but undeterred Eagles can continue to find—and convert—open shots and easy layups, third-seeded Florida is going to be in for a fight on Friday night.